


hot gossip

by pulpofiction (pifflapodus_scriptor)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, sex sex sex sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:29:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1360708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pifflapodus_scriptor/pseuds/pulpofiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako of the Fire Ferrets and Korra of the White Falls Wolfbats hate each other. Hate. A true grudge-match of legend. </p>
<p>Or so everyone thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hot gossip

**Author's Note:**

> one-shot.

Halfway through the season the competition between the Fire Ferrets and the White Falls Wolfbats starts to heat up, and despite Tahno’s best efforts to be the star shining bright at the center of publicity, almost all of it is because of the rivalry between their firebenders.

No one really knows how it started between them, what exactly tipped this over into a disaster of gossip that flooded the probending circuit with sudden allegiances and quick-tongued backstabbing. But someone (probably Ula, from the Red Sands Rabaroos) remembers Korra in the locker rooms after an exhibition match, fuming about barely winning the tiebreaker against Mako.

“That was nothing compared to an actual agni kai,” Korra says with a scathing smirk, whipping her towel off her shoulder and slamming her locker shut with a brutal kick; “any jerk can throw a fireball, but real skill means lighting one match from a hundred yards away.”

And everyone knows that when it comes to Mako, the only thing stronger than his firebending is his pride, and kids who learned bending second-hand from triad thugs don’t have the luxury of things like technique or proper form like the damn Avatar. Mako knows what she said (because Ula told Bolin, and Bolin, despite being friends with everyone, is his older brother’s only friend) and even though he knows that strategy is more important than technique in the arena, Korra’s comment, to be honest, cuts him.

His wounded pride starts to fester. He digs up an ancient firebending formbook, the pages velvety soft and pale yellow with age, and scowls at the diagrams. The forms, inked in black and brilliant sunset colors, are graceful and fluid as they dance across the page, but they look nothing like the burn first, roast second style of Triple Threats and Agni Kais. Mako mutters an unintelligible oath, shoves the book back into the bookshelf, and storms out of the secondhand bookstore into the hazy afternoon, throwing up his hand in frustrated dismissal. Who gives a shit about the nuances of form? He just wants to eat. Knocking someone off a platform gets him paid. Done.

But it escalates. The sports journalist for the Republic Daily writes up a long and thoughtful column about how probending teams can maximize the strengths of their firebenders:  _“Their element is self-generating, which makes them the most mobile, but this in combination with the offensive strength and power of fire itself means that firebenders’ chi reserves are sapped the fastest out of all the elements. A good probending team will have their firebender focus on conserving their energy and perfecting long-range, quick-kill strikes for spare, but efficient use.”_

Perfectly inoffensive to all the teams, until the journalist throws in the kicker.

_“The Fire Ferret rookie squad easily makes the best use of their cool-headed firebender, team captain Mako. He essentially bides his time as his teammates Hasook (W) and Bolin (E) play a combination of offense and defense, waiting until his opponents are tired to truly begin playing the game. Compare to the White Falls Wolfbats firebender Avatar Korra, who blunders on the field, all power but without direction, target, or subtlety.”_

Korra’s look of shock - open-mouthed, ambushed - for lasts a split second, but she recovers and tears the newspaper out of Tahno’s hands.

“No direction,” she growls, crumpling the newspaper with both hands, her face twisted with disgust and fury.

“No target!” Korra hisses, her voice rising in pitch, and she throws the balled-up newspaper as high as she can into the air over their heads. The newspaper soars upwards towards the ceiling of the practice room and she cocks her fist downwards, like a piston.

“No  _subtlety_!!” she shouts, and pumps a blast of fire at the ball of newspaper, incinerating it in a round blaze of flames and coating Tahno and Ming with a light dust of ashes.

She fumes, clenching and unclenching her fists, grinding her teeth together in a canine snarl. Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating. She’s the Avatar, for spirit’s sake. And Mako is just a stuck-up, snotty, arrogant jerk, he think’s he’s just so cool, a tough guy, let’s see if he’s still ‘cool-headed’ when she burns his hide off -

“Don’t worry about it, Uhvatar,” Tahno says in his iced purr, brushing ashes off his shoulder with casual flicks of his hand, “he’s just a nobody compared to you.”

He says it with that funny drawl of his: Mako is a nobawdy. Korra snorts and jerks her head away to glare at random objects in the room, daring them to tell her she’s without restraint or something. Nobawdies are the most dangerous kind of people, because you don’t know what to expect. And she certainly did not expect to have her pride punctured by the precise stab of a journalist’s pen. There was only one thing to do about it.

“Where is he?! We’ll settle this right now,” she snarls, “one-on-one, just him and me, on the arena. I don’t care what the newspaper says. I’m gonna turn him into a - a lump of coal!”

“Settle down, you’ll get your chance to take him on,” Tahno says, tying his hair back and away from his face. “And in front of the whole stadium. He’ll be all yours.”

Korra huffs and yanks on the straps of her wrist-guards, tightening them around her forearms. They wanted her to learn patience. Even if it was sore, frustrated, mortified patience. Kicking Mako into the pool would be worth the wait.

The article is passed around like contraband, and Toza tapes it to his office door out of pride for his protégé. Ula tells Jun of the Eel Hounds that Korra has it out for Mako, and someone - ‘someone’ - heard Mako gloating out loud as he signed the article for a fan (so much for the Avatar, he said) and the idea that Korra and Mako hate each other sinks its claws into the probending circuit gossip and doesn’t let go.

The truest believers in this sacred feud are Mako and Korra.

***

They circle the prospect of the championship match like moths around a flame - both teams slowly but surely taking down their competitors, tossing them aside with careless ease, and everyone waiting with conspiratorial snickers for the Firebender Showdown - but it’s outside the arena where their rivalry finally detonates.

Tenzin is not amused.

“Korra, I will forbid you from probending if this ever happens again,” he says, folding the newspaper over and hiding the gossip section from sight, and at the breakfast table on Air Acolyte Island Korra gulps on her nervous fear.

“I - I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she stutters, “I was just out with Tahno and Ming and we saw the Fire Ferrets at Narook’s - ”

“Almost 3,000 yuans in damages!”

“Tahno started it! He went over to their table and then Hasook - “

“But you flipped the table,” Tenzin says, “and you’re the one who set it on fire. Am I right?”

Korra quails under his stone-faced glare, her protests dying in her throat.

“Yeah,” she mumbles, and Tenzin stands up to his full height, towering above her, fixing her with a stern look.

“Korra, you’re the Avatar. You should be above childish rivalries like these, especially when the city is looking to you for guidance during these troubled times. I want you to end it, now - with your words, Korra, and not with your fists.”

Korra clunks her elbow onto the table and makes a face, resting her chin in her palm.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” she mutters, “I’ll go over and talk to Mako.”

Tenzin nods once in firm approval and she sits there, stirring a chopstick around her bowl of half-eaten rice porridge in irritated circles.

“Well?” he says, and Korra slams the chopstick down on the table, raising herself up with a burst of power.

“Argh! Okay! I’m going!” she snaps, and stomps out of the breakfast room into the sun-bright winter air, scowling at the bay as she trots towards the ferry.

When she reaches the probending arena it’s mostly empty and Korra wanders the halls and rooms, peeking through half-open doors and around corners, hoping she doesn’t run into any Fire Ferrets. Maybe the Wolfbats could come practice on the island, so she doesn’t have to see Mako’s face until the championship match, and maybe Tenzin would rather shave off his pointy beard and stir-fry it.

She looks into the empty weight room, snorting with laughter to herself at the idea of Tenzin without his beard - he’d look like an egg, a strict, lumpy, blue-painted egg - and is broken out of her daydream by a voice behind her.  _His_  voice. That  _jerk_.

“What are you doing here?” Mako says, accusing; Korra turns around, one hand on her cocked hips. They’re standing on the wooden walkway on the side of the probending stadium. He’s framed in blue-green by the sea behind him, and the colors are cool with morning shadows. He’s scruffy, hair mussed in all directions with scuffs of ash on his cheeks, fresh off a shift at the power plant.

“Nothing. What are  _you_  doing?” Korra says, and mentally kicks herself.

“Well, I want to get into my apartment, but you’re in my way,” Mako says, crossing his arms and curling his shoulders forward, a surly slouch, and Korra scoffs.

“Oh, of course. Your majesty,” she intones, bowing low at the waist and sweeping her arm down the walkway; now it’s his turn to sneer.

“What’s your problem?” he says, and she draws herself up.

“You,” she spits, “What’s yours?!”

“You!”

“Good! Then we have something in common! Oh,  _shit_.”

Her swear is for herself rather than for him and she claps her hands to her forehead, exhaling a rough breath of anger. This is not working. If only apologies were a bending form, then all her problems would be solved.

“Look, Mako. I’m here to, to uh, to say I’m - this thing we have between us is getting out-of-hand,” she says, waving her hand and letting it flop to her hip; Mako raises his eyebrows.

“And it should stop,” Korra adds.

“So it’s over,” she says.

Mako just stands there, looking skeptical and slightly amused.

“Just like that,” he says, rich with sarcasm but without changing his expression, and she has the faint impression that he’s laughing at her.

“Um. You know what? Fine. Let’s play a game,” she says, suddenly inspired by what Pema and Tenzin have the airbender kids do when they’re fighting with each other, “let’s take turns saying nice things about each other… “

She trails off as Mako bursts into laughter, turning on his feet and tossing his head back, hand raised slightly over his face.

“I’m serious. Mako, I mean it!” she says fiercely, and takes the jump: “Uh - I like your eyes!”

Mako stops, dropping short gasps of laughter, and gives her an odd look.

“You like my eyes,” he repeats, one word at a time, and she nods eagerly. He frowns in thought and says, “Alright, I like yours, too.”

“Hey, you can’t copy mine!” Korra protests, and he shrugs in smug victory.

“It’s your turn,” Mako says coyly.

Korra wraps her palm to the side of her face, rolling her gaze across the ceiling and thinking. What else does she like about him?

“Okay, I like how hard you work. You’re always practicing, you’re always trying to get better at bending,” she offers, and Mako accepts it with a gracious tilt of his head.

“And… I like how…  _passionate_  you are. You’re, uh… you’re just always so full of life,” he says, and his words sort of melt over her, warm and sincere, like summer afternoon sunshine. She smiles despite herself - no, despite him, she smiles despite  _him_.

“Even when you’re burning tables down,” Mako chortles, and Korra blushes.  _Rude_.

"Hmm, I ran out of nice things," she says, lifting her chin and folding her arms in disdain, and Mako curls his lower lip in over his teeth, grinning with his tongue in cheek.

"Mm. Maybe you’ll like this?"

He moves and leans in, lowering his head, his mouth stopping mere inches from hers, and Korra sucks in a breath that flows straight from his parted lips. She did not expect this. But she lifts her eyes to his, golden and shining and challenging; and her heart beat begins to thunder, in a good way, in a way that makes lightning course and crackle through her nerves.

“I… don’t know, let’s find out,” she says, and Mako smiles wider - then he closes the distance with a full, rich kiss, his lips moving with hers, a firm, confident lock of their mouths together. He pulls her upward with an arm around her waist and she tilts her head back as he deepens the kiss, the tip of his tongue skimming her lips once, soft and damp, and then slipping between them; she hums  _mmph_ and Mako breaks away.

"I like the way you kiss," Korra says, a little breathless, and Mako licks the curve of his upper lip with a brief dart of his tongue, suggestive and unintentional all at once.

"I like the way you kiss back," he says, smirking, and their eyes drop to where his arm is still curled around her waist. A moment of silence, where all they hear are the harbor waves slapping against the pilings of the walkway, calm and green and rhythmic.

“I don’t get why you hate me,” she says, and he squints.

“I don’t hate you,” he says, “I thought  _you_  hated  _me_  - “

“Who the hell told you that?”

They stare at each other, confused, his palm on the curve of her hip.

Korra grabs the back of his head and pulls him down for another kiss, because she can do  _better_  than him, and her senses fog with a heady rush of excitement. She bites his lower lip, threads her hand through his hair, tightens her fingers in the soft blackness; he groans low in the back of his throat. She draws her head back, just a fraction, and fixes him with a look, an upward glance through her lashes, smiling with a sliver of breath between her lips.

“ _Liars_ ,” Mako says, and kisses her again - she fists the front of his shirt in both hands, tightening the distance, and they sort of stumble, sort of fumble into the empty weight room, their eyes closed, her foot hitting some box on the floor with a hollow clunk and him groping for the door to pull it shut.

They pause for breath, her eyes sparkling and alight, and she puts her palm flat on his chest.

“How much do you not hate me?” she asks, and he flushes with color.

“A lot,” Mako says slowly, his hands sliding under the hem of her shirt, resting in the small of her back, and his rough fingers burn on the coolness of her flesh. A thrill runs up Korra’s spine as a knot tangles inside her, just below her navel, and she can’t hear her thoughts over the pounding of her heart - he doesn’t hate her a lot, this was so stupid -

She grabs the front of his coat and kicks at his foot, unbalancing him, toppling them both to the mat, and Korra kneels with his leg between hers and kisses him again, her fingers braced onto his collarbone, his coat pulled tight in her other fist. Mako’s fingers tangle in her hair as his chest rises, his back arching towards her, and when Korra shifts her weight she feels him hard and thick against the front of her thigh.

“You  _really_  don’t hate me,” she says, grinning, and he claps a hand over his face in sheepish embarrassment.

“Spirits, I’m sorry, it’s - “

“Shut up, I like that too,” she says, and straddles him, relishing the way he huffs in response, mouth slackening, blinking once as his eyes widen. She crosses her arms to her hips and pulls her shirt off, uncrossing them again as she drops it on the floor. She kisses his neck, damp warm pops of her lips on his taut skin, and tugs at the scarf draped around his collar.

For a few moments they stop thinking about what they’re doing and Mako’s hands merely roam over her, large and firm and warm, leaving a trail of goose-bumps all over her, and something heavy and hot turns over in Korra’s stomach as he lightly pulls her hair so that her mouth meets his again, lips glistening wet, his tongue brushing over hers in easy waves, velvety slick.

She pushes down with her hips and rocks them forward, a rolling pressure of her crotch against his, and he moans into her mouth - a high, primal sound that sets off a dull, achingly hot explosion of feeling between her legs, and Korra thinks about what she’d really like - she does it again and he lets out a strangled sound, a gasp caught and bubbling in his throat - yeah, she’d definitely like it -

She cradles his head in her hands, pressing her forehead to his, and the shining rim of his teeth is visible between his open lips as he pants. His eyes are brighter than bright, shimmering like oil on water, and he seems almost dazed.

“So?”

“So,” Mako breathes, nodding with a helpless eagerness, and she swings her leg over to roll off him - they make short work of their clothes and it’s almost laughable, the way she wriggles out of her pants and kicks away her boots, like they’re on fire, and he whips his scarf off and shrugs out of his coat and shoves them aside. Then his shirt comes off and Korra takes a second to lean over and scrape her teeth over the muscles on his chest, because it’s shining with sweat, tensing with each touch, and  _built_ , he’s dense and broad, he’s so fucking  _physical_  -

Mako twines his hand into her hair and grips with a lusciously painful tug - like she’s the only thing to hold onto, in some raging, wanton storm of lust - as she drags her lips down his torso, leaving the occasional sharp bite, just to keep him on his toes.

She stops at the place where the coarse line of scratchy black hair trails into his pants and kisses it, pulling a deep suck on his skin, flattening her tongue against him, and somewhere near her neck she feels something shift as his breath shudders out.

“Korra, wait - wait, wait, wait, we need - argh, where is it - “ he says, one hand under her chin, and Korra squirms away and waits. Mako twists around, his brow furrowed, and searches one-handed through his discarded coat until he finds something like a cigarette case, a thin tin box.

Korra chews on her own thumb, jostling her foot with impatience, as Mako lifts his hips, his shoulders still pressed to the floor. It’s a motion she really,  _really_  likes because his stomach sinks and flexes and there’s clefts of muscle that curve and swoop in hard definition from his hips to his crotch and she wants to run her tongue over every line of his body. Korra helps him undo his pants and take them off, her tongue poking between her teeth in excitement, her arousal pounding between her legs, and it takes every single scrap of her already poor patience to just wait and just watch.

“Here we go,” Mako says, popping open the tin box with his thumb and plucking out a skin condom. His cock is heavy and thick and throbbing with blood, tilting towards his navel, glistening at the tip. Korra clenches her hands in a stiff, reflexive gesture of restraint as Mako rolls the condom over his cock and takes a moment to adjust it.

But like  _hell_  she’s going to let him win; and Korra kneels over him, his hips pressed between her knees, pinning him down with one hand on his shoulder, and she takes a moment to tiptoe her fingers up his bare thigh, inching close but not close enough, running her fingernails in feather-light scratches over him. She drinks in every single desperate, depraved noise that falls from his lips. He screws his eyes shut and bares his teeth, his head rolling to the side, as Korra dances her fingers around the base of his cock but does not touch it.

“Oh, Korra,  _spirits_ ,” he murmurs, and slips his hand into the waistband of her panties, stretching the fabric as he slides them down her hips; Korra lifts a knee up and out and the panties fall down her other thigh, resting against the top of his hip. Mako uses his hand to coax her down, stroking her sex, making shallow thrusts with his fingers, and Korra bites her lip and inhales deeply, her arm trembling as hot-cold shivers roll up her body from toes to head in waves.

Korra grabs his wrist and pins it to the floor next to his head, and then the other one too, and she undulates against him, her breasts against his chest, pinning his cock between them. She rolls her body in one sinuous movement as she kisses him, thrusting her tongue into his mouth - his back cants into the floor and he kicks out with one foot, groaning throaty and deep and breathing hard, clawing uselessly at thin air. Finally Korra slides onto him, sheathing smoothly on his cock so that they both moan in unison, she lifts her head as his eyes flutter shut -

But she only goes halfway, and Korra laughs onto Mako’s face as she cages his head between her elbows. His expression is overwhelmed and fraught with want, with unbridled desire, and the breathless agony of being so close but still so far…

“You really do hate me,” he says, cupping her ass with both hands, thumbs flush to her hipbones, dimpling her flesh with his insistent, almost bruising grip. She lifts herself off him and bites his lower lip in response, pulling it with her teeth, tousling his sweat-dampened hair.

“’Cause you’re a jerk,” she says, and falls on him again. This time she keeps going, starting slow until its comfortable and then picking up a rough, reckless pace that elicits high-pitched keening breaths from her and deep, throaty sighs from him on each thrust. Their lips crush together wet and arrhythmic  _mmph_  and  _hnng_  and Korra practically falls onto him - stuffing herself over and over on his cock as she hurtles towards the edge of her senses, a precipice of delicious hurt and fire that flares up every nerve in her body, a feeling that seizes her in a burning chill and her head spins with a searing, all-consuming, blind pleasure -

Korra’s toes curl and she collapses onto his chest, rigid and trembling as her orgasm blooms in a thousand colors over her body, her cunt seizing tight around his cock, and she bites his shoulder and screams a sobbing cry of pure bliss as it takes her whole -

He locks his hands on the small of her back and pushes down, holding her onto him, and follows her with a long, shaking groan from somewhere buried deep in his body, his skin flooded with a reddened sheen, eyes rolling into the back of his head. Korra drapes herself on his torso, her cheek on his collarbone, panting hoarsely; and Mako strokes her back as he gathers his breath, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Wow,” he says, in a husky voice, and she agrees: “…yeah, wow.”

She lies there on top of him, listening to the sound of his heart beating hollowly in his chest, and Mako cards his fingers through her hair in relaxed, post-coital idleness.

“No! Fucking!  _Way!_ ”

They startle and look up, Mako clutching Korra to him to cover them both. They see Ula from the Red Sands Rabaroos standing in the doorway, her gym bag across her shoulder, her open-mouthed grin brimming with shocked, undisguised glee.

Mako makes an exasperated sound of disbelief:  _ergh!_ , and hides his bright red face with one hand. Korra looks at Ula and just starts laughing.

So much for their feud: the gossip tomorrow is going to be  _good_.


End file.
